Lava Agni 5G Review – Does It Stand Up With The Competition?

The all-new Lava Agni 5G is a mid-range smartphone with 5G as its key highlight. However, this device is crucial for the company for reasons other than 5G. Lava’s Agni 5G is the company’s most expensive phone to date. It also has a lot of hopes relying on it. It’s also the one with enough features, according to Lava, to lure those who want to do more than text and talk on a smartphone, such as shoot videos or play games. Lava Agni 5G costs Rs 19,999, which is a lot of money for Lava, which has always represented as a low-end smartphone manufacturer, but there’s always a first time. But will it give Lava its best shot? Let’s find out.

Checkout: Recycle Your Old Phone Now! Get Rewarded.

In India, the Lava Agni 5G comes with only one variant, 8GB RAM + 128GB storage option which is priced at Rs. 19,999. It’s only available in one colour, Fiery Blue. The phone is available in India through Amazon, Flipkart, and other online and offline retailers.

Planning to upgrade? Sell Your Old Phone in 60 Seconds From Home

Inside the firing box of Lava Agni 5G, you will get the following:

• Lava Agni 5G
• USB Cable
• Charger
• SIM Ejector Pin
• Back Cover

Before we talk in detail about the Lava Agni 5G, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.78 inches IPS LCD
• Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 810
• RAM & ROM: 8GB RAM 128GB Storage
• Software: Android v11
• Rear camera: 64MP + 5MP + 2MP + 2MP
• Selfie camera: 16 MP
• Battery: 5000 mAh
• Weight: 204 grams
• Dimensions: 168.8 x 76.8 x 9.1 mm

Lava Agni 5G is a hefty smartphone with a 6.78-inch screen with a selfie camera hole punch. This camera hole is noticeable and might be a big distraction. The bezels around the display were slim, with only the chin being thicker than the rest. The phone is made of plastic, with a glossy blue surface that shines when light reflects off it. The edges of the body have been curved by Lava, making this phone more comfortable to hold. The top and bottom are both completely flat.

The power and volume buttons are located on either side of the body, close to the middle, making it easy to access. The power button on the right features an inbuilt capacitive fingerprint scanner that can be used to unlock the device. The hybrid dual-SIM tray slot is located above the volume controls on the left side. The bottom of the Lava Agni 5G features a 3.5mm headphone jack, USB Type-C port, and speakers, while the top has just the secondary microphone.

The backside of the device includes a quad-camera layout, and the unit does protrude. It features a two-step design, with the dual-LED flash and a single camera sensor on the first tier, and the other three camera sensors raised a little higher on the second tier. The back panel has a glossy finish that readily picks up smudges.

Check Out: Motorola Moto E7 Power Review – Competent Phone at Affordable Price

Lava Agni 5G features a 6.78-inch Full-HD+ IPS LCD that looks beautiful. The Lava Agni display features a refresh rate of 90Hz, which pales in contrast to the Redmi Note 10 Pro‘s 120Hz AMOLED display. You lose the strong contrasts, but it’s still a really well-tuned LCD panel. The images and videos have a vibrant and brilliant look. Everything is visible in the sunlight, however not as clear as on a Redmi Note.

The 90Hz refresh rate smooths out graphics and scrolling, improving the viewing experience significantly. Note that the smartphone is set to 60Hz by default; to enable “High-speed refresh,” go-to “Intelligence Assistance.”

While the scrolling and animations appear to be fluid, the touch response is somewhat sluggish, which is noticeable when playing games. I’ve also had a few experiences with ghost touches. In addition, the lack of Widevine L1 functionality means that OTT apps can only stream in low-resolution.

Lava used the MediaTek Dimensity 810 CPU in Lava Agni 5G for 5G, which I reviewed earlier this year on the Realme X7. It has a fast processor that is fairly reliable whether multitasking or playing games. Everything runs smoothly, from accessing multiple websites in separate Chrome tabs to running various apps in the background to recording a video or taking a photo. Some of the credit goes to the phone’s 8GB of RAM, which minimizes lags.

GPU-intensive games like PUBG New State and BGMI can run at medium graphic settings and keep a constant 45fps for a long period of time.

Check Out: Nokia XR20 Review – A Great Rugged Phone, But Not the Best Value

For instance, when I played Battlegrounds Mobile India on the Lava Agni 5G, the game automatically switched to HD graphics and a high frame rate. At these settings, the game didn’t stutter at all. I played for 20 minutes and saw a 4 per cent fall in the battery. After gaming, the phone felt slightly warm to the touch. If you’re searching for a smartphone in this price range to play games on, Lava Agni 5G offers decent hardware to enjoy games.

The software on a smartphone is one of its most important elements, and Lava did the right thing in Lava Agni 5G by offering it the stock Android 11. It’s the Android software that you’ll find on Nokia, Motorola, and even Micromax phones. I’ll give Lava a pat on the shoulder for keeping the phone free of bloatware. That’s because, regardless of whether a smartphone from a Chinese company costs Rs. 20,000 or Rs. 7,000, it’s packed with unwanted apps. But, as much as I love it, I’m not sure about software support on the phone because Lava hasn’t said anything about it yet. The phone comes preloaded with a few Google apps and Facebook.

When you tap on an app, it expands to fill the entire screen. This animation is fantastic, despite the fact that it slows down the process. You may turn this off at any moment. Lava made sure that app icons had animations as well. When you press the home screen button, some apps, such as Dialler, Contacts, Camera, Google Chrome, Clock, and Google Play Store, will play a short animation. Agni also comes with Game Space inbuilt, which is useful because it gives your games the boost they need to compensate for hardware shortcomings.

Lava Agni 5G features a quad-camera configuration that includes a 64-megapixel primary lens, a 5-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, a 2-megapixel depth sensor, and a 2-megapixel macro sensor. It sports a 16-megapixel front camera for selfies. The Agni 5G’s camera app is simple to use and has all of the different shooting modes clearly shown. Quick toggles for AI scene detection, HDR, and filters are available. Note that the smartphone watermarks images by default, so you’ll have to turn it off if you don’t want it on your photos.

Lava Agni 5G was quick to recognise what it was focused on and automatically enabled HDR when it was needed. Surprisingly, it defaults to capturing images at the full 64MP resolution, resulting in 25MB files for each image. Photos shot in natural light were fine on their own, but zooming in them revealed a watercolour-like look. HDR was used aggressively in shots taken in bright environments. I noticed a difference in the output after switching to the 16-megapixel resolution. The performance of the ultra-wide-angle camera was fair — the colour tone was slightly off compared to the primary camera, and it didn’t catch the same degree of detail.

Close-ups performed better and also include more detail. The Agni 5G didn’t require a second try to lock focus. It also gave the background a nice blur. Surprisingly, the Lava Agni 5G captures portrait photographs at the full 64-megapixel resolution by default, and you’ll have to choose to a lower resolution manually once again. The edge detection in portrait shots was great, but the background blur was too strong. Fortunately, you can lower the intensity before taking a shot. Macro shots captured with the dedicated camera provided sufficient quality, but the resolution was restricted to 2MP.

The quality in low-light images was decent, but the shadows were grainy. Night mode photos were brighter and grain was less noticeable. In this mode, the device takes roughly 3-4 seconds to capture a shot.
Selfies taken with the 16-megapixel camera were great. The phone captured details pretty well in daylight, however, the picture appears smoothened. Selfies taken in low light with a light source nearby came out decent.

Check Out: What is Gcam? How to install Gcam on any Android smartphone?

For the primary and selfie cameras, video recording is limited to 2K and 1080p, respectively. The primary camera’s footage, both in daylight and at night, was not stabilised. It was wobbly, but the overall quality was decent.

Lava Agni 5G includes a 5000mAh battery that the company claims can last up to 8 hours of YouTube streaming. I didn’t try to test that claim, but I did discover that the battery lasts more than a day under normal scenarios. That would include hours spent texting on WhatsApp, looking at pictures on Instagram, taking pictures, and streaming one-hour episodes of Witcher on Netflix. I was able to end most of my days with 35 per cent battery life when I used it mildly. That’s impressive, especially since I put the phone through 30 minutes of gaming, a few video calls, an hour of Talktime, playing music on a Bluetooth speaker, and browsing social media for two hours on average, all while using a blend of mobile data and Wi-Fi.

Read More: Top 10 Tips To Keep Your Smartphone Battery Healthy

There’s also a 30W fast charging support. So, if you run out of battery sooner than I did, a period of roughly 1.5 hours should be enough to get a full charge.

The phone’s single bottom-firing speaker is loud enough to watch and enjoy videos. It is loud, but the sound is not very clear. Lava Agni 5G has Bluetooth 5.1, dual-band Wi-Fi, dual 5G, and 4G VoLTE connectivity.

The fingerprint sensor is built into the side power button. The fingerprint sensor is accurate and quick. If you don’t like it, you can opt for the face unlock option, which I found to be inconsistent.

Pros

• Long-lasting battery life support
• 30W faster-charging speed
• Trendy side-mounted fingerprint
• Decent image quality in daylight
• 90Hz refresh rate display
• Offers Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection
• Stock Andoird 11 OS expreince
• 5G enabled

Cons

• Cameras need improvement
• Bulky design